Welcome to F.A.T. Lab

The Free Art and Technology (F.A.T.) Lab is an organization dedicated to enriching the public domain through the research and development of technologies and media. Release early, often and with rap music. This is Notorious R&D.

Snowden was said to have been so paranoid about security he lines the doors of his hotel room to prevent eavesdropping and covers his head and laptop with a large red hood to prevent passwords being copied by secret cameras.

I don’t know about you, but I’m a little sick of hearing about the same people on TV over and over again. I came up with this Arduino-based solution to mute my TV so that I don’t have to hear about Donald Trump’s feud with whomever or Charlie Sheen’s most recent rant. Using the Video Experimenter Shield, the Arduino is able to decode the closed captioning transcription track, which is transmitted along with the NTSC picture signal. The incoming text is processed for a set of keywords such as “KARDASHIAN” or “SNOOKI” and sends my television’s IR remote control mute command, muting the TV for 30 seconds and then unmuting it (as long as a keyword isn’t mentioned again).

I heard something about Amy Winehouse having health issues. Then I noticed that Amy Winehouse never seemed to be wearing a lot of clothes in any of the pictures I saw of her. I also noticed that she changed her look very often and looked drastically different from picture to picture. It occurred to me that maybe she felt like she had to wear revealing clothing in order to be recognized by showing off her distinctive tattoos. I found several pictures where it appears that even when she did wear warmer clothing, she was still forced to expose her tattoos.